Steve Pulaski
Roger (Jon Heder) is a meter-reader with little confidence and not a lot to live for. Browbeaten, verbally abused, and harassed by everyone in his life, he takes the advice of his close friend (David Cross) to take a self-esteem class taught by a man named "Dr. P" (Billy Bob Thornton), who is quickly found to be the kind of self-esteem teacher to teach you the ways of confidence and self-worth by providing you with even more verbal abuse in your life. Roger's ultimate goal - besides earning respect from others - is to win the heart of his neighbor, an Australian graduate student named Amanda (Jacinda Barrett), who he can't seem to talk to without being met with a panic attack or fainting.Todd Phillips' School for Scoundrels is a remake of the 1960 film of the same name, which I can only imagine to be a bit nicer and less bossy in its tone and approach to its material. However, despite its over-arching mean-spiritedness as one of its themes, School for Scoundrels actually manages to be a consistently funny comedy, mostly thanks to its capable band of actors, all of whom have had some work in the comedy field and know just what to say and how to say it when the time is right.For starters, consider Billy Bob Thornton, who is simply fearless as Dr. P here. Thornton has a way of assimilating well to any given role, be it a foul-mouthed mall-Santa, a questionable folk from the backwoods, or a browbeating self-esteem teacher. Thornton works well here because he's as brash and as off-color as the material, often assisted by his character's assistant "Lesher," played by Michael Clarke Duncan. Now consider Jon Heder who, before this, only got to show his skills in one of the most lackluster comedies of the last decade. Heder is a solid, sympathetic character here, especially for those who can see his characters' struggles and hunger for acceptance and are willing to buy into it. Some characters in films are the reason for their own problems (take virtually any Adam Sandler film from the nineties), but Heder's Roger is simply a bit geeky and a tad uncoordinated, and for that, is unfortunately the target for abuse and ridicule. On those notes alone, his character is easy to side with because he is relatively blameless.Alongside Heder are the likes of Sarah Silverman as Amanda's friend who continues to give Roger a hard time, Horatio Sanz, Aziz Ansari, David Cross, Dan Fogler, Luis Guzmán, Jim Parsons, and Ben Stiller (however, in a role of questionable value), all of whom very competent comedians who accentuate the quick-witted qualities that got them to that level in the first place. While School for Scoundrels gets by almost entirely on the charisma of its actors, Todd Phillips and Scot Armstrong's writing shouldn't go unnoticed. For the most part, the writing duo create an unabashedly fun, silly comedy with enough consistent laughs to warrant a recommendation.The only struggle for the film is how it wants to achieve its climax, in this case, making the entire "get the girl" subplot too silly and way too overblown. The film was grounded in a certain, goofy reality up until maybe the eighty-minute mark, and for that reason, the film becomes a bit of a struggle to continue to buy into during its last twenty-five minutes. Regardless, it can't derail the comedic talent at hand, along with Jon Heder's Roger, who, for once, isn't picked on because of his own stupidity but for his own genial manner and geeky appearance. He's a character I can see many identifying with.Three years after the release of School for Scoundrels (which bombed at the box office and has now, eight years later, faded into almost complete obscurity), Todd Phillips hit a comedy homerun, financially, after directing all three Hangover films, effectively transcending his career into heavily-raunchy material and leaving geniality behind with School for Scoundrels. This is kind of an upsetting fact because this film has the unsung ability to identify when the two sequels leaching off the original Hangover were nothing but an annoyance to moviegoers. The film at hand rarely achieves comedic heights, but its dramatic ones are worth noting and appear to have been grossly shortchanged.Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Jon Heder, Jacinda Barrett, Sarah Silverman, Horatio Sanz, David Cross, Dan Fogler, Luis Guzmán, Ben Stiller, Jim Parsons, and Aziz Ansari. Directed by: Todd Phillips.
Floated2
Jon Heder, dialing down the gawkiness of his breakthrough role in Napoleon Dynamite, stars as Roger, a spineless New York City meter maid prone to panic attacks and being picked on. He can't even muster the nerve to ask out the girl next door, Amanda, a warm-hearted Australian. Roger hits bottom when he's dumped (again) as a big brother, leading him to a secretive, cash-only class taught by Thornton's Dr. P, a self-styled self-help guru who shows weak men how to unleash their "inner lion." This films has an interesting story and premise but isn't all that great and it seems very usual compared to other films. At times it seems like it doesn't know what type of comedy it wants to be. Is it a black comedy that isn't dark enough? Or a dumb comedy that isn't stupid enough, or a gross-out comedy that isn't yucky enough? Or is it really just a romance comedy that isn't sweet enough? It starts out as a silly comedy then turns into a romantic comedy and ends that way. The film could have been much better but it wasn't so bad. Not very funny either. Decent and watchable film.
btm1
There was a decent but not outstanding British comedy (1960) by the same name as this film, starring that great comic actor Alastair Sim, who also was wonderful as Scrooge in 1951's Christmas Carol. It was based loosely (the books resemble self-improvement manuals) on Stephen Potter's well-worth reading "One Upmanship" and "Lifemanship" books. Those hilarious best-selling books provide the reader with a guide as to how to use guile to get even with someone you identify as worthy of getting even with, or as Potter put it, "creative intimidation." To some extent the 2006 "School for Scoundrels" could also be said to be based on those Potter books. While the original books and the 1960 film envisioned a small private college that taught the art of being one-up (if you are not one up, you're one down), the 2006 version is a single self-improvement course taught secretly by a masterful rogue (Billy Bob Thornton) who calls himself Dr. P, to a group of low self-esteem "losers." His course resembles extreme confidence building sink or swim exercises more than one-upmanship. But he also goes one-on-one to put down the best of his students. It is explained that Dr. P is very competitive and shoots down anyone who might approach his level of skill. When facially challenged Roger (Jon Heder) unexpectedly is standing out as the best of his class, a one-upmanship contest between the master and the student gets underway.This is a fun film to watch; not at all sophomoric and not leaning on the slapstick approach. In addition to the two leads, the rest of the cast includes, among others, well known comic Sarah Silverman and comic actor Ben Stiller. Stiller is about as good as he gets (he is usually in films that are not my taste in comedy, although I recently saw him in something I really enjoyed.) On the other hand, the lines given to Sarah Silverman just make her character brassy rather than funny and are not up to the caliber of her stand-up comedy that she writes for herself.
